INTERNS WANTED

Writing and maintaining the nation's second most popular blog (only a few million readers behind Oprah) is not an easy task. The amount of blood, sweat, and alcohol it takes to keep I Stole Your Lunch at the top of its game is absolutely obscene. Semi-interesting rambles and proper punctuation don't grow on trees, you know.

Needless to say, Scott Colby is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The time it takes to keep you mental midgets entertained is seriously eating into the time he has to spend chasing his dream of one day becoming World Wrestling Federation champion, especially now with all the increased scrutiny on steroids. No longer can he just stick a needle in his luscious buttocks and call it a day. He actually has to work out. Stupid Jose Canseco.

So what's Scott Colby to do? For a while he considered giving up one or the other, but he just couldn't force himself to abandon either pursuit. The variety of women attracted to him due to the two is just too great. Chicks with yachts like his crazy writing style. Chicks with trailers like his mad suplexing skills. It's the best of both worlds!

He agonized over his conundrum for an entire episode of "The Surreal Life," then the answer hit him like a slap to the face. It was so obvious, he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it earlier.

Scott Colby needs interns!

Anyone who wouldn't want to intern at I Stole Your Lunch is obviously either retarded, illiterate, or from Medford. Millions would jump at the chance to grab a slice of the fame and fortune involved with this little endeavour, which is itself a problem. Scott Colby would have to hire interns just to help read all the craptastic resumes, but he'd have to hire other interns to read the resumes of those interns, and he'd have to hire interns to read the resumes of those other interns...and so on and so forth until your head explodes. So, in order to weed out the losers, Scott Colby crafted this detailed job description.

Responsibilities

• Interns are responsible for all day-to-day operations of I Stole Your Lunch except the actual writing.
• Interns must dress in a professional manner. Dale Earnhardt t-shirts are unacceptable.
• Interns must be on constant guard for sasquatch attacks.
• Interns must make sure there is always a box of donuts in Scott Colby's pantry.
• All interns are required to use the word "leakage" three times a day.
• Interns must keep their shotguns handy at all times and be prepared to take a bullet or jump in front of a heat seeking missile for Scott Colby.
• Interns must smell like a cool spring breeze.

Required Skills

• Interns must be able to use a stapler without losing more than two fingers at a time.
• Interns will be proficient in sweeping the floor and Febrezing stinky things.
• Interns must understand the proper use of the comma.
• Interns must realize that this particular post is getting very stupid very quickly.
• Interns must be able to recite every word from Less Than Jake's "Hello Rockview" album.
  

Previous Experience

• Master's Degree from an Ivy League school or the University of Phoenix Online.
• 5 years panhandling in front of Burger King or 7 years handing out free samples of bourbon chicken in a mall food court.

Application Process

Step 1 - Interested parties should first ask themselves if they are ready to be involved with a world changing endeavour as powerful as I Stole Your Lunch. They should then ask themselves if they can tie their own shoes. If the answer to either question is "No" or "Only when Mommy's there to help me," they should not bother to apply.

Step 2 - Send Scott Colby a Polaroid of yourself dressed as your favorite character from "Napoleon Dynamite." On the back of the photo, write an inspiring haiku detailing the sociopolitical impact of the statement "Tina! Come get some ham!"

Step 3 - Retrieve a sample of floor muck from Foggy Goggle and analyze its various biological and chemical components. Then feed it to some mice and count how many extra eyes they grow.

Step 4 - Essay time! In five hundred words or less, describe what I Stole Your Lunch means to you. Post as a comment to this entry. Bonus points if you can make Scott Colby cry.

Step 5 - The end.

*Buffalo women need not apply.

Worst. Website. Ever.

Edit 3/14 - OK, I deserved that one. Post removed due to technical difficulties.

The Idiot's Guide to the Foggy Goggle

I consider myself to be one of the world's foremost philanthropists, and as such I am always searching for ways to improve the condition of the human race. Take this blog, for example. How many lives has it saved? How many dark clouds of evil has it sliced through like the righteous light of justice? They have yet to invent a number large enough to answer either of those questions. If you have time, you might want to give it a try, so you can tell babes that you're a bigshot mathematician with a swanky chateau.

According to a public service announcement I saw on VH1 last Monday at 3 in the morning, an ounce of prevention is...well, I can't remember the metaphor, but apparently prevention is important. It wouldn't be on cable if it wasn't true, so it really got me thinking. Perhaps I've been approaching this philanthropy thing from the wrong angle. Maybe I should be working to stop tragedy before it happens, instead of helping the victims to pick up the pieces afterward.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Now all I needed was the right disaster to avert. I didn't feel ready to take on anything earth shattering, like global warming or an alien invasion, but I didn't want to be a wimp and take the easy way out, either. Writing a blog reminding people to look both ways before crossing the T tracks is not a good way to build the crazy street cred I'm looking for. I needed something with danger and intrigue and a liberal helping of scandal, a self-contained microcosm of society's ills. For weeks and weeks I was stumped, though I could feel the answer lingering just millimeters beyond the limits of my consciousness. Then I stood up too fast and whacked my head on the underside of the bunk bed, and all of a sudden my mission became clear.

On Boylston Street, across from the Hynes Convention Center, there stands a shadowy man of judgement who guards a shimmering glass door. If you are deemed worthy, the man will grant you entrance. For some, that door leads to a golden paradise. Others claim it's the gateway to hell. One thing's for sure: venturing inside without any foreknowledge of the interior has been known to reduce even the most well-adjusted individuals to slobbering vegetables unable to tie their shoes or cut their own food. It's not a pretty sight, kind of like anyone from Medford.

Such is the tragedy that I wish to prevent. I only hope that I am not too late. If my indecision doomed even one innocent soul to the aforementioned fate, I may not be able to sleep at night. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a document that will change the world, a piece of literature to dwarf the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bible, "Moneyball," and even "My Teacher is an Alien." I give you "The Idiot's Guide to the Foggy Goggle."

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The Idiot's Guide to the Foggy Goggle
By Scott Colby

Copyright I Stole Your Lunch, 2005



This one is for my baby's mama

Before we embark on our dark journey to the darkest depths of Boylston Street, let us take a moment to set the atmosphere. All it takes is a single word: skeevy. Look up skeevy in a dictionary, and you'll see a picture of the Foggy Goggle. If you can't find skeevy, it means your dictionary is crap and you should either throw it out or use it as toilet paper because Charmin isn't on sale this week.

"But Scott Colby," you ask, "If Foggy Goggle is as devestating as you say, why would I ever consider going inside? After all, Time Magazine did name it number 4 in its annual list of 'The Top Ten Places Where the Antichrist is Most Likely to be Conceived,' before Revere Beach and after the back seat of Brigitte Nielsen's Benz." There is a 95% chance that going to Foggy Goggle will not be your own idea. There exists in every group of friends that one person who takes it upon him or herself to completely disregard the warnings of others and convinces the rest of the group that venturing to such a place is actually a good idea, mostly by being exceptionally whiny and annoying. Despite the fact that every nerve in your body will be screaming at you not to go to Foggy Goggle, you'll go just to shut up your stupid friend.

Let's get this show on the road.

• Do not look at the floor. You do not want to know what you're walking in. Some things are better left a mystery, and this is one of them. Just to be on the safe side, you should probably burn your shoes the minute you get home. You don't want any of that stuff taking up residence between your toes.
• Girls under the age of 17 drink for free. I think whoever owns this pit (my guess: Jabba the Hutt) has some dirt on Mayor Menino and is using it to blackmail poor Mumbles into granting the Goggle immunity from the usual liquor laws, but only for trashy underage girls. Jailbait!
• That's not a jello shot. Scantily clad waitresses roam the depths of the Goggle with trays of what appear to be liquored up jello. For a few bucks they'll press themselves against you and toss one down your throat, followed by a squirt of canned whipped cream. Congratulations, your blood stream is now full of mind control drugs developed in the '50s by the CIA to stop the spread of Communism. You won't even think about leaving until the bouncer comes to kick you out, and when he finally does, you'll spend the next hour and a half face down on the sidewalk begging for someone to let you back inside. Also, do not get attached to the waitresses. Despite the fact that they are easily the best looking women in the joint, they are robots. You think real women could survive these conditions?
• Don't use the bathroom. I'd rather stick my head in a wheat thresher, and if you take a leak here, you just might find yourself on the next bus to Uncle Buck's farm in Iowa, scribbling a suicide note on the back of a Bickford's placemat. But at least you'll die with a stomach full of scrumptious pancakes!
  
• Yes, those are real fish bowls. Ever wonder what happens to a gold fish's home when he dies? A little known government program sends migrant workers into the nation's garbage dumps every Monday at midnight to recover any used fish bowls. They are then sold on the black market, where most of them end up back at Petco or Wal Mart. A small percentage of them, usually the really, really scummy ones no one else will buy, end up at the Foggy Goggle where they are used to hold pathetic imitations of scorpion bowls. Waking up in the gutter with fish food on your breath is not a good way to start the day.
  
• Beware the buffalo women. Foggy Goggle is the best place in Boston to observe this rare species in its natural habitat. Buffalo women travel in herds of 10 to 20 animals, each weighing somewhere between 400 and 600 pounds. The average buffalo woman is about as intelligent as a moldy log and possesses little or no sense of modesty, preferring to dress in clothing that reveals generous views of things you just don't need to see. When they decide to dance, and they will, close your eyes and find something sturdy to hold on to. If they corner you, and you don't have a few Twinkies to distract them with, you're as good as dead.
• Bring your own cup for White Trash Wednesday and your first drink is free. Actually, that's kind of a good idea.

I know this may all seem a bit overwhelming, but if you follow this guide carefully, you will survive. Heck, you may actually have a little fun along the way. Now go home guys. I'm tired.

"...just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song..."

There exists in every situation where a multitude of individuals share the same living space a singular problem pervasive to all such arrangements: regardless of peer pressure or the positive examples set by the other members of the community, there's always someone, or several someones, who never do their damn dishes.

It's been a fortnight since last I cast my gaze upon the bottom of my kitchen sink. I've watched in horror as layer upon layer of used plates, bowls, silverware, pots, and pans methodically reached towards the stars like an undersea volcanic vent spewing forth magma to create a new landmass. Scraps and splatters of what had once been edible material full of wholesome goodness have coalesced into ragged clumps of biological refuse. Not only is the mound an eyesore, but it seems to enjoy smelling like something different every day. On Monday, it was bologna on rye. On Tuesday, it was a Worcester girl after a long night at Sh'booms. Today, it seems to be doing its best impersonation of Matthews Arena.

"But Scott Colby," you are surely asking by now, "how difficult is it to wash a few dishes?" While it is true that washing dishes is one of the favorite occupations of those who failed to complete high school, and as such is ridiculously easy, that is not the point. Other people's dishes are other people's dishes.

Still, as the days passed, the urge to destroy the mound with a torrent of hot water and soap became stronger and stronger. Often while sitting in a classroom I would find my right hand making a circular scrubbing motion on its own accord, and I would grab it with my left and slam it down on the desk and hope that no one thought I was a retard. Sometimes I could even feel the soft underside of a soapy sponge tickling my palm. I decided that the source of my distraction must be eliminated, lest it ruin my ability to operate amongst normal people with clean sinks. I was truly a man on a mission when I burst into the room and stalked stoically toward the mound.

Imagine how shocked I was when I heard it singing.

Unfortunately, the high-pitched melody stopped abruptly before I could recognize the tune. Thousands of tiny feet could be heard scrabbling for purchase amidst the cookery, accompanied by a few distressed whines and moans. And then all of a sudden the mound returned to its naturally quiet state.

I stared at the pile in utter disbelief for what seemed like 2 hours but was really about a minute and a half, trying to determine if I'd actually heard what I thought I'd heard or if that fat girl at Foggy Goggle had slipped me a mickey again. I scratched my butt a few times, but that didn't help. The only way I was going to determine what was going on would be to investigate the sink.

After putting on a breath mask and duct taping a flashlight to the side of my head, I cautiously approached the steaming mound. With my roommate's toothbrush I carefully lifted the topmost layer of crud and examined the mound's interior. A wispy cloud of greenish vapor that reeked of dirty sweatsocks wafted into the air, but I ignored it and focused my attention on the crusty landscape before me. A thorough examination of the mound revealed no evidence of anything that could've been singing. It seemed that Shavonda was up to her old tricks again.

But then I saw it, a thin sliver of blue in a dingy brown clump of week old guacamole. I carefully retrieved the tiny fiber with my roommate's nose hair tweezers and held it up to the flashlight at my temple. My mind whirred and spun as I dove through my memories of ninth grade biology.

And then it clicked. The singing, the blue hair...it could mean only one thing.

Here be fraggles.

No, that's not a misprint. All evidence pointed to a community of fraggles living in the filth that used to be my kitchen sink. "But Scott Colby," you're whining again, "Fraggles live in a hole in the wall that leads to Fraggle Rock, not Fraggle Dish Pile." Well, you'd be correct, if it was 1986. But the modern fraggle lives a much different lifestyle than those who filled our childhoods with song. The onset of global warming led to the extinction of the Dozers, the manufacturers of their one and only food source. The Dozers were extremely sensitive to temperature; their spleens stopped spleening, and they all keeled over and died. The only fraggles that survived the food shortage were the ones that turned to eating dish gunk. Their whole way of life changed; the carefree days of singing songs about sharing and friendship are gone forever, replaced with a filthy existence that can only be expressed through late 80's power ballads. The state of the modern fraggle is truly a sad one, and President Bush doesn't want you to know any of this.

I wanted to see them. I knew that I would have to wait until the late evening, when they would feel safe enough to show themselves. I also knew that fraggles are extremely sensitive to the biorythms of other creatures. For those of you with a fourth grade education, that means that they would be able to hear my heartbeat and thus would keep themselves hidden. In order to observe them, I would have to place myself in a near comatose state. So I went down to the Fuentes Market, plunked down $3.75 for a 30 rack of Natty Light, and drank myself into a stupor on the aptly named Ol' Stinky.

They appeared around 3 a.m., a horde of bedraggled little muppets moping pathetically across the floor like Scott Colby after he's spent an entire graphics class thinking about depressing things he knows he shouldn't be thinking about but which he thinks about anyways because Laterza is stupid and there is nothing better to do. They didn't laugh or dance or play or do any of the things you'd expect fraggles to do. They did, however, perform the saddest, most touching rendition of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" that I have ever heard. And then I passed out.

And no, the fraggles were not a side effect of the beer. Everyone knows that Natty Light makes you hallucinate snorkels, not fraggles.

I'm bored with this. The end.

P.S. I Stole Your Lunch thanks Mike Brilla for eradicating the disgusting pile of dishes. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, does not approve of the destruction of fraggle habitats. They do not care that he is an Important Businessman. They've dispatched a squad of delta force tree huggers to sing him happy songs and recycle his paper. Run, Mr. Brilla. Run like the wind!

Making the world a happier place

So I'm sure when you woke up this morning, as you rolled out of bed, or climbed down from your bunk, or hoisted your hungover form out of the puddle on your bathroom floor, the first thought that popped into your head was the same thought that's been dominating your conciousness since the day Al Gore invented the Internet. You've dreamed about it. You've prayed for it. You've asked the glowing Indian statue for it every time you've tossed a penny into the fountain at Foxwoods. It's an uncontrollable desire that manifests itself at the most inconvenient times. It's kept you awake at night. It made you forget a movie at your girlfriend's house. It caused you to slip and fall while dancing on the bar. It made you forget that pink is not a very manly color. It even made you try to put out a grease fire with a glass of water. It's caused never ending pain and frustration to even the most well-adjusted individuals, and yet it can be boiled down to one single, agonizingly simple sentence.

"Sweet Jesus, I wish Scott Colby would start a blog."

Well it's time to jump in the car and haul ass to Connecticut, because you owe that glowing Indian a great big hug! Scott Colby has heard your subconscious screams for help, and he's come running to your rescue! The Internet as you know it is about transcend time and space to become something so wonderful, so immaculately radiant, that the planets will align, war and hunger will cease to exist, and people will live in absolute harmony for the rest of time, similar to the effect created by Wild Stallions music. Either that, or this little endeavour will descend to the level of a flaming car wreck that you just can't tear your gaze from, no matter how hard you try. Whatever happens, at least it will give you something to read at work, and hopefully you will learn a few things about proper comma usage along the way. Proper punctuation is a beautiful thing.

Plywood the windows, hide your donuts, and lock up your daughters (especially if they have yachts and/or trust funds), because a monster of Godzilla-esque proportions is about to be unleashed.

P.S. - Blogs are for losers.